Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-01
HONEY IN POLITICS.

MONEY IN POLIT1CS-
The Commonwealth Club is discussing
and will be for some weeks SO engaged
the use of money in elections, and how to
reform the iniquity. No one denies that
money is illegitimately and corruptly SO
used. No one denies that without those
intermediates, the bosses, it would not be
nearly SO much used. No one questions,
either, the charge that the bosses get and
keep the larger portion OF the money so
used; at least it is not controyerted that
the bosses grow rich in their business.
The fact that so important body as the
Commonwealth is discussing the sub
iect is a gratifying sign, for it indicates
awakening attention to the growth and
power of bossism, and out of this arousing
of public thought we may hope for ulti-
mate and definite good results. The
growth of intelligence on the subject will
point the way to the true methods of re-
form, and the overthrow Of bossism. But
they will never be accomplished by legis-
lation, as has been attempted. Laws and
regulations may aid progress to the desired
end, but eventual reform will be the child
of public sentiment. The regret expressed
in New York that the reform bills were
not got into position to be passed on in the
Legislature of that State this year, is not
warranted. 1t is better that the bills were
not introduced. For behind any law what
ever there must be the backing of right
public sentiment, and on this subject it is
as yet insufficient in New York. That
sentiment will, wherever cultivated, pro-
duce in due time the right kind of legis-
lators, and these may enact laws that will
render less laborious the work of securing
to the people absolutely untouched ballot
boxes, and elections free from the faint of
bribery.
The place in which to begin the cultiva
ton of the right sentiment and to lay the
foundations of the desired reforms that are
to eliminate the vote-buying and office
selling class, and to make their calling
odious in all eyes, is in the school-room of
politics-the primary club and ward meet
ing. Out of these spring all other politi-
cal activities-at least through them they
must be made manifest. The civil service
reform has made the awakening of the
people more easy, for it has, as New
York contemporary recently incisively
put it,
brought the people to understand that the
public service is their own: that they have
right to honest and capable performance OF 1t,
and that the pretension that 1t belongs TO party
workers or party managers is both untounded
and disgraceful. This feeling is extending. 1t
goes to the root of political corruption. II chal
lenges all the methods and purposes OF the ma
chimes 1t takes away the excuse that partisan
leaders have for monopoly OF political man
agement and activity. Once get the idea
thoroughly into the public mind that party sue
cess must be the means to an end not the end
in itself; that it carries with it no claim for
those who secure the success to a cent from the
public treasury, and the ground is largely cleared
for the abolition of the dishonest use of money
in elections"
And the ways to the impregnation of
the public mind with that idea are through
persistence in its preaching by fearless
press, and by revival of the town meeting
in something of its pristine purity, attend
ance upon the ward meetings, and atten-
ton to duty at party primaries. In these
initial posts the campaigns for good gov
eminent must be planned and begun. A
few good, firm men, standing for their
rights in these places, and not discour-
aged by defeats, can accomplish the re-
form.
1t is not the apathy of the people on
this subject that prevents progress, the
mass of them earnestly desire reformation,
but it is the idea that any effort at reform
alton is well nigh hopeless; that the ma
chinery of political action is not mort
gagged only, but actually transferred to the
bosses. Once show the people that they
can retake and use it at will, and that the
misuse of it is due to their failure to
make the effort necessary to recovery,
and it will be wrested from its present
possessors As tie New York Times puts
it, "the American people do not like to be
cheated and robbed" That they are
jealous of their rights is proverbial, and
that they will not always or long submit
to their prerogative to name the admins
traitors OF public affairs being made mat
ter of bargain and sale is the conviction of
the best thought of the day. The signs of
the times, such as the new discussion in
the press and in the Commonwealth Club;
the growing favor of the civil service laws
and their adoption into State systems by
two members of the Union, point to the
final triumph of the anti-boss sentiment,
and the suppression of the market for
the buying and selling of nominations and
elections.